Will & Grace Revival Already Renewed For Season 2

NBC announces that the revival of Will & Grace, season 1 of which premieres this September on the network, has already been renewed for season 2. The original Will & Grace, which ran from 1998 to 2006, can easily be categorized as a success. The eight seasons were not only groundbreaking with its lead LGBT characters, but the show was largely well received by both critics and fans. Plus Will & Grace earned 83 Emmy nominations over the course of its run, winning 16, while additionally garnering 27 nominations at the Golden Globes.

With a recent lull in sitcom success on the major networks – not to mention the influx of television revivals for shows like Arrested Development and Gilmore Girls, just to name a few – it’s not surprising that NBC would want to revive one of its former successes. With the original cast of Eric McCormack (Will), Debra Messing (Grace), Sean Hayes (Jack), and Megan Mullally (Karen) on board, along with creators Max Mutchnick and David Kohan, the “Must See TV” network agreed in April to a 12-episode order for season 9, recently bumped up to 16 episodes.

That show of confidence in Will & Grace was only the beginning, it seems. As Screen Rant’s Kevin Yeoman reports from the Television Critics Association summer press tour, NBC has already renewed the series for a second revival season of 13 episodes. This is much shorter than the show’s earlier run of roughly 24 episodes per year, but not unusual with the more modern trend towards tighter seasons.

The revival will retain the spirit of the original series, following the misadventures of single lawyer Will and BFF interior designer Grace, with their much feistier friends Jack and Karen making life even messier than usual. The creators recently revealed that the new episodes will ignore the events of the season 8 finale flash-forward, which featured marriages and children and the title characters having grown apart.

The trailer for the Will & Grace revival capitalized on the chemistry between the four leads and their playfully insulting banter, and also referenced the passage of time. There should be plenty of new comedy material for characters living the single life in their 40s, and NBC clearly thinks there’s enough there for two seasons-worth at least. Hopefully that’s a positive sign that revisiting these four iconic characters 10 years later will be worth the wait.